


All the Way Home

by thisbluespirit



Category: Upstairs Downstairs (TV 1971)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Servants, Victorian, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28286721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit
Summary: It had been supposed to be such a quiet evening…
Relationships: Elizabeth Bellamy & Rose Buck
Comments: 14
Kudos: 17
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	All the Way Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Philomytha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/gifts).



_1898_

It was unusually quiet downstairs. Her Ladyship was away at Southwold and several of the other servants gone with her, while Jane had had to go home to her mother. Master James was at school, of course, and Miss Elizabeth staying the night at a friend’s – her first stay away from home. Mr Bellamy was at home, but he only wanted a supper tray in his study and the remainder of the servants’ hall anticipated an evening spent catching up with mending and other small tasks easily overlooked on busier days.

The bell for the front door rang, breaking into the companionable silence. Rose jumped, and Mr Hudson rose from his chair. He shrugged on his butler’s black jacket before hastening away up the stairs.

Rose, the newest member of the household staff, fresh here from Southwold, returned her attention to mending one of Miss Lizzie’s best petticoats, frowning in concentration over the torn lace, and only looking up when she heard Mr Hudson call back for her from the top of the stairs. She looked up, not having expected it, but with Jane and Alfred away, who else was there if somebody needed something?

“Rose,” said Mrs Bridges, who was sitting in the chair nearest the fire, taking the weight off her feet, as she’d put it. “Get on with you girl – you’re wanted!”

Rose dropped the frilly white garment, straightened her apron and then hurried up the stairs at a speed that would have earned her a rebuke from Mr Hudson if he’d been in a position to see her. She emerged into 165 Eaton Place’s main hallway to find that the disturbance wasn’t over a visitor, it was young Miss Elizabeth Bellamy. She was standing there in front of Hudson, half his height, bedraggled and mud-spattered despite her thick green coat; its matching beret set askew on her head. The skirt and petticoat that peeked out from beneath her outwear looked not only also muddy, but torn. That’d be needing mending, too.

Mr Bellamy stepped out of his study, and Rose hung back against the servants’ door to let him pass unimpeded. “Whatever is this?” he said, and then his gaze turned downward to his small daughter. “Elizabeth! Why are you not at the Rochesters’?”

“I opened the door, sir,” said Hudson, “and there she was. Quite alone and no carriage or any other vehicle in sight.”

Elizabeth shrugged, and pulled off her beret, wringing the damp object in both hands. “I didn’t like it very much, so I thought I would come home.”

“By yourself?” Mr Bellamy drew in his breath, as if to scold, but glanced around first at Hudson and then beyond him, to Rose. “Well, we shall have words about that later, young lady,” he told Elizabeth. “Hudson, let the Rochesters’ know that this appalling child of mine is here and quite safe, if you will. And –” his brow furrowed momentarily – “ah, Rose, isn’t it? Take Miss Elizabeth upstairs and put her to bed – where she ought to have been at least an hour since.”

Rose helped Miss Elizabeth undress, saw to her bath, and then helped her into her nightdress, a simple white shift nevertheless edged with blue silk ribbon and lace finer than any that would ever grace even Rose’s Sunday best.

“Did you really walk all the way from Wilton Crescent on your own?” 

Elizabeth nodded. “Oh, yes. It’s not very far, is it? I knew the way and it was quite light with all the street lamps and the moon.”

“Hardly safe, though, not for a little girl like you. Whatever possessed you, Miss?”

Elizabeth climbed in under the covers and tugged the bed linen against her. She looked suddenly much smaller. “I didn’t feel well,” she said, and pressed her hand to her stomach. “I felt as if I’d swallowed a stone, and it was awful. I couldn’t just _lie_ there. So I thought I’d come home. It doesn’t hurt any more,” she added. “Everything was better as soon as I saw Hudson at the door.” She giggled. “I wanted to kiss him, but I don’t expect he would have liked it much.”

Rose didn’t think so, either. Mr Hudson was too dignified for that sort of thing. She found him a little alarming sometimes, although not anything like as grand and fierce as the butler at Southwold.

“Sounds like you was homesick, Miss,” Rose said. “You’d have done better to close your eyes and try to sleep – it’d all have been fine again in the morning, and then you’d have had a nice time with Miss Beatrix and her family. Running away’s no good. Now you’ve got everyone angry with you – and you never know what could have happened to you out there.” Rose found living in London frightening. Some days it felt like she’d been swallowed up by some great roaring beast that had no end to it.

Elizabeth bit her lip. “I expect you’re right. But I’m glad I did it. It’s so nice to be home. I love this house – I love my room and my bed and my pillow – I love Hudson and Daddy – and you, too, Rose.” She stretched out her arms as if to encompass her immense feelings and then fell back against the pillow with a laugh. She sat up again almost immediately. “Do you think Daddy will be very cross?”

“Not half, I should think,” said Rose. “Giving everyone a scare like that!” She paused, folding up Elizabeth’s discarded clothes, and gave her a smile. “Still, he’ll forgive you if you’re sorry, Miss Lizzie. He loves you, too; that’s plain to see.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Well, I shan’t ever go away again. It’s beastly. At least, not until I’m a bit older. Maybe next year. I expect I’ll have to go to school, like James.” She turned her blue gaze on Rose. “Have you ever been homesick?”

Rose thought sharply of every night these past few weeks, lying in the attic room in the dark and holding her breath in the effort to stay still and not cry lest she should disturb Jane and get a kick for her troubles. She was pleased to be in a good household like this one, but being so far away took a bit of getting used to, much more than starting out at Southwold had, with Mother close by and so many people she knew in the household.

Eaton Place was smaller and friendlier, though. Southwold was such a grand place, it had dozens more servants, all of them above a humble tweeny, and half of them with their own pantries and rooms so that you hardly even saw them. Here, they were all down in the servants’ hall together, with Mr Hudson and Mrs Bridges presiding over the table. They could share their news and even have a good gossip when Mr Hudson let them. Now that she was getting used to it, on good days, they were almost growing to feel like a family.

“Sometimes, Miss Lizzie,” Rose said, perching briefly on the side of the bed – forgetting herself, Jane would say if she was here. Lucky she wasn’t. “But when it comes over me, I shut my eyes and think of something good instead, just as hard as ever I can.”

Elizabeth frowned faintly, considering the information, and then she stretched out her hand and clasped Rose’s wrist with warm fingers. “Yes, I expect you do. I think you are a _good_ sort of person, Rose, and I’m very glad you came here. I like you much better than Mabel. She tugged my hair till it hurt every time she brushed it.”

Nobody seemed to have been fond of Mabel, Rose’s immediate predecessor. (“Sly, that girl,” Mrs Bridges had said several times. “Little things was always going missing when she was around.”) Rose felt a little guilty being happy about that, but Mabel’s unpopularity made it easier for her – everyone had been pleased to have her there, just because she wasn’t Mabel.

“Yes. I’m glad I came here, too,” she said. She was better off than lots of the girls from Southwold. They didn’t all get to go to the big house. Most of them had to work for quite ordinary families, all on their own, in the village or the next town, or away in London. Some of them got treated something shocking, and there was no one to complain to or share the work or help out when things got bad.

She thought again about the attic room, but she felt better already, as she stroked Miss Lizzie’s soft, dark hair briefly and bid her goodnight with a shy smile. She didn’t think the homesick feeling would come over her quite so bad tonight. She was getting used to it, and Jane was all right, really. She wasn’t unkind and always made sure to tell Rose how to go on. Couldn’t blame her for not wanting to be woken by a silly girl turning about half the night, not with all the hours they worked.

Mr Bellamy walked in through the door, ready now to deal with his errant daughter, and Rose slipped out, pausing only to bob a quick curtsey to the master. Soon, she thought, it’d only be as if she had two homes and two families, not one, and that had to be a good thing. Some people didn’t even have one.

Back downstairs, Mrs Bridges had a cup of tea waiting for Rose. She took it, warmed by the gesture as much as the tea, and felt again the memory of Miss Lizzie’s touch on her arm. She was one of the lucky ones. She’d grow accustomed to Eaton Place and all their little ways soon. Yes, Rose decided, and straightened unconsciously in her wooden chair. She’d be all right.


End file.
